This invention relates to tractor cutting implements having multiple cutting chambers, and more specifically, to structure for assisting at least one chamber""s cutting blade to more effectively lift and cut the vegetation in its path.
Cutting implements which are usable with lawn and garden tractors and which have multiple cutting chambers are often carried or mounted with the tractor at the middle thereof. The tractor, itself, typically has four wheels on which it is supported whereby two wheels are placed at its front and two wheels are placed at its rear. As they roll across the ground, the front wheels mat or knock down the vegetation or grass that they have passed over before it is to be cut by the blades of the implement. As a result, some of the grass that is knocked down is not adequately lifted or raised by the blades of the implement causing a strip of poorly cut or uncut grass to be left within the path that the mower has just traveled.
Specifically, the difficulty mentioned above has occurred in the use of three spindle implements having, correspondingly, three cutting chambers. Even more specifically, the difficulty has arisen with the right hand cutting chamber. Here, grass that has been knocked down under the right front wheel is not properly lifted, or raised to a stance permitting it to be adequately cut, by the right hand blade as the tractor passes.
When grass is cut using an implement having three chambers, a stream of material consisting of air and grass is created by the rotation of the blades within each of those chambers. The first stream typically begins at the far left chamber and is thrust along its inside front wall and the inside front walls of the center and right chambers to an opening adjacent the right chamber where it is then discharged from the implement. When moving from the center chamber into the right chamber of the implement, a combined stream from the left and center chambers clashes with the stream that is swirling inside the right chamber as the blade therein continues to rotate. As a result, it has been found that the grass in the path of the right wheel is not being adequately lifted since an area of turbulence, or disruption in the smooth flow of the combined stream mentioned above, exists across that path.
The presence of this turbulent area makes it difficult for the blade to lift or raise the grass to enable it to stand upright and be sliced as the blade passes. The grass is unable to stand up because this turbulent area continues to beat it down after it has already been knocked over by the right or tire in front of that area of turbulence. Accordingly, the grass in the path of the right front tire is unable to straighten and be effectively mowed.
Thus, it would be beneficial to provide a mechanism that enables grass in the path of the right front mower wheel to straighten and be effectively raised and cut by the mower.
Accordingly, there is provided a mechanism that permits the grass in the path of the right front tire to straighten and be properly cut as the tractor passes over that path. The mechanism provided is a baffle in the form of a steel strip that is mounted, preferably by welding, to the inside front walls of the center and right chambers.
To enable the grass to straighten as mentioned, the strip creates a void in which the grass has an opportunity to stand back up after the tractor tire has traveled over it. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the void is created since the strip provides a flow direction channel or pathway that reduces turbulence among the flows of air and grass in the area in which the center and right chambers of the deck meet.
To minimize this turbulence, the channel permits a substantial portion of the streams of air and grass flowing from the left and center chambers to be lifted away from the ground surface. Afterward, these streams or flows from the left and center chambers move within the channel to a discharge opening where they are then thrown from the implement.
With movement of these flows up and away from the ground surface, turbulence once caused by the meeting of the above flows with that flow caused by rotation of the right blade is substantially reduced.
As a result of the baffle strip""s ability to direct a major portion of the flows from the left and center chambers into the channel, an area of minimal disturbance exists where the flows of the left and center chambers previously met that of the right chamber. Accordingly, grass and other such vegetation knocked down by the tractor""s right wheel is permitted to straighten in an area under the strip without being further beaten down by the above area of turbulence. As a result, the right hand cutting blade can properly cut the vegetation falling within its cutting plane and then convey that vegetation within the inside of the implement so that it may then be discharged therefrom.
Thus, there is provided a mechanism that permits the cutting implement to which it is attached to effectively cut and convey vegetation within and from its travel path, respectively.